Winter's End (11 page)

Emma nodded. “Very well.
I suppose it’s alright considering that the kids would love to have you around
more often.”

Richard gave a small
frown. He dipped his head, trying to focus on the seams in the walls but his
mind refused to pay any attention.

“By the way,” she
rambled on. “Lisa Johnston called.”

“Who?” Richard grumbled.
His mood was fouled and he really did not want to hear anything this
 
‘Lisa Johnston’ might have said.

“My neighbour. From
number 17 down the road,” said Emma. “Well, she gave me two tickets to a couples
dance in
Dunvegan
last week and I completely forgot
all about them. Would you like to go?”

“When is it?”

“A week from now.
You’ll still be here, right?”

The sun was shining
brightly and he moved slightly to shield his eyes from it. He looked at her
from the top of his brow. “Do you want to go?”

“I don’t mind a night
out. I haven’t been anywhere in a long time.”

He remained silent
for a few minutes. He watched the rays of sunlight dance on her auburn hair creating
a golden halo over her, mesmerising him. Emma always had this effect on him,
bewitched him like the first day he had laid eyes on her at her apartment.

He had returned home
from their first meeting at her quaint flat, unable to go to sleep as he
continued to replay Emma’s beautiful face in his mind. And when he finally did,
he dreamt of her smile and how she turned her head to the side whenever she
tried to follow what he said.

When he did go to
work the next day, it was the first time he ever paid very little attention to
his tasks. He wanted to race to her door and declare his attraction for her.
But from the little conversation they had that night, he quickly learnt that
Emma wasn’t like any woman he’d known. She had a heart that was created from
ancient clays and legends; a time where maidens waited an eternity for the love
of their lives to save them from the sorrows of ordinary living.

He needed to be
careful. He wanted to become hers forever.

He painstakingly waited
three days and on the fourth evening, he almost sprinted to her flat.

She opened the door
and
 
from her surprised expression, he
could tell that she had not expected him to return at all.

“Richard,” she said.
“Hi. Did you need something?”

He held up a bottle
of red wine and grinned. “I drank all your wine so I thought I might replace
it.”

She grinned, her
smile reaching her eyes, lifting it at the corners. “That was a cheap bottle of
merlot. You’re giving me an expensive cabernet sauvignon. I can hardly call
that fair.”

“Oh,” he said,
looking confusedly at the label on the bottle. “Alright. How about I drink this
up over a conversation with you and I get you a cheap merlot next time.”

She chuckled. “Oh,
very well,” she said with a pretentious sigh as she accepted the bottle and let
him into her flat.

He sat on the couch
in the square foot living room. “You’re alone again tonight,” he said noticing
the silence in the tiny flat.

“I usually am,” she
answered. “That’s why Lauren and I have lasted for the three years we’ve been
together.” She looked at the bottle. “Would you like a drink now or later?”

Richard smiled. “No,
I’m fine. I think I’d rather have a cup of coffee if you don’t mind.”

“You sure you won’t
mind me pouring your expensive wine on a leg of lamb roast?” she teased.

He chuckled. “Sounds
delightful. Let me know when you do, so I can come around to share a piece of
it. That sounds fair now, right?”

“Oh, okay, I
suppose,” she replied with feigned disappointment.

“How long have you
been living here?” he called out as she turned on the carafe.

“Five years. I had a
couple other room-mates before Lauren. I guess they didn’t find me too exciting
to live with.” She walked out with two cups of hot, steaming coffee. He could
tell by its sweet aroma that was now diffusing into the air, she had made it
from freshly ground coffee. “What about family? Do they live far away from
here?”

She placed his coffee
on the coffee table and walked to the opposite couch with the other in her
hand. “No,” she said simply. She took a sip from her cup without adding to her
answer. Her sullenness told him that she didn’t want to speak about it any
further. Her eyes drooped as she looked away. For the first time since he had
met her, he saw the sparkle of positivity that formed her essence, fade from
her. Probably she would tell him one day. But today he would let it be. He wanted
her to smile again.

Emma grabbed the box
and rushed up to her room. Her hands shivered with excitement as she hastily
unwrapped the box delivered to her by mail from London.
 
It had been long since she had done any shopping
for herself. She never found any good reason to. But with the upcoming dance at
Dunvegan
, she had scrolled two days on her computer
looking for a dress to wear.

After a long while
and skipping lunch for the second time in a row, she finally found one in a
small boutique shop in London West.
 
It
was a beautiful light cyan chiffon, knee length dress. It’s bodice accentuated her
breast and waist. The skirt was gathered and fell elegantly into a ribboned
hem.

She ran her hands
over the soft fabric and then picked it up gently. Placing it against herself,
she admired herself in the mirror. She wondered for an instance on how she
should style her hair. She supposed she could think of it later. There was
still two more days to the dance.

She blushed as she thought
of whether Richard would like how she looked in it.

“Emma,” she heard
Richard call her from downstairs.

She hurriedly hung
the dress in her wardrobe. She hadn’t told Richard of it. She skipped down the
stairs hoping he hadn’t suspected anything from her short morning drive to the
post office.

“What is it?” she
asked as she appeared into the conservatory.

“Where have you
been?” he asked. “You’ve been gone for an hour at least.”

“In my room,” she
said.

“You okay?” he asked,
slightly worried.

“I’m fine, Richard,”
she said, dismissively. “Just been fixing it up a bit. So what is it?”

“Right,” he said,
looking at her briefly with curiosity. “Have a look at this.” He drew her
attention to a large sheet of paper laid out on the table.

“It’s a plan of the
house,” she said, recognising it.

“Yeah,”
 
he answered. “I tried to keep much of the
original house as possible. You see that,” he pointed to a part on the plan. “I
thought we could extend the living room further slimming it into a corridor and
then lead it to a study and my office. In that way we can keep much of the view
of the bay all through the bottom floor of the house.”

“How long have you
been working on this?” she asked, her eyebrow raised inquisitively.

“A week now,” he
said, watching her closely.

“Is that why you’ve
been missing for a while?”

He grinned. “I found
the previous plan in a box in the attic. And I thought, why not? No harm when I
had all I need to start it off with.”

Her mouth broke into
a beaming smile. “I had that box stashed up there after the construction of the
conservatory. I didn’t think I would ever need it again.” She gave a brief
glance at the plan and shook her head. “How did you know where to find it?”

“Emma,” he whispered,
drawing closer and bending so that he could meet her at eye level. “How long
have I
known
you?” He flicked his pencil against the
top of her head.

She slapped his chest
fondly. “Alright. Let’s have a look at it then.”

*****

“Yes, yes… I know,
but…” she heard Richard on the phone. He gave her a brief, worried look as he
continued the conversation up the stairs and into his bedroom.

She watched him for a
while and wondered if anything could have happened for Richard to look at her
so concernedly as he did.
 
She sighed
hoping that she was fidgeting over needless, unnecessary issues. She suspected
it was business. It would be no surprise then that he would want to keep the
matters of it private.

Emma walked out of
the house and towards the garden shed. The air was getting warmer and day light
was slowly extending over the days. With the new spring blooms filling the
meadows, she was looking forward to seeing some of her own pretty flowers in
her vegetable garden.

She remembered
stacking up the garden fork amongst other garden tools in the right corner of
the shed. Luckily she was obsessive over organisation and so it didn’t take her
too long to pull out the green handled garden fork.

It was well worn from
her days in London. When she did move to Skye, she couldn’t bear to part with
it nor with all her other gardening equipment.

She ran her hands
over the handle and re-checked the sturdiness of the tines. They were firm and
strong and they still had much years left in them.

Dragging the fork
behind her, she worked her way towards a spot that didn’t sit too far from her
kitchen. Ensuring once more that it wasn’t too exposed to the harsh high
coastal winds of Skye but that it also received a fair amount of sunlight, she
started digging into the soil.

It was virgin soil
and so for the first half an hour she struggled to simply break into the solid
earth. The previous owners did not seem to have had a garden at all which she
felt was rather odd considering that they were sheep farmers. Didn’t all
farmers have at least a small garden? Maybe not, she said to herself, wiping
her sweaty brow with the back of her long shirt sleeves.

“Hi,”
 
said Richard, popping out of the kitchen.

“Hi,” she replied,
squinting back at him as the bright sunlight that reflected against the glass
windows of the kitchen door, pervaded her eyes.

He ambled towards
her, his hands in the pocket of his jeans. He kept glancing at the bay and the
horizon in the ocean. She felt he was trying to refrain from looking at her. A
nervousness knotted in her stomach. She desperately wanted him to clear up the
discomfort inside of her but she didn’t want to push him to explain his sudden
apprehension of her. She remained quiet, waiting for him to speak first
instead.

“I see you’ve got
your old fork,” he said, giving her a small playful grin.

“Yeah, I couldn’t
part with it,” she teased back. She scratched the soil beneath her feet with the
colourful butterfly covered garden boots she had on. “I thought I should get
some seeds planted before the summer heat sets in.”

“That’s a long way
from now.”

“I know. But it’s
good if the plants are well-established by then. It helps them survive the
heat.”

“What are you going
to plant?”

“A bit of tomato,
lettuces and cabbages probably. Some broccoli would be good also.”

Richard nodded,
observing the now freshly dug dirt. He could see it was quite fertile, with a
healthy infestation of earthworms wriggling through the lumps of damp soil. The
smell of fresh earth filled the air and he quite liked the calming effect it seemingly
had on him.

“I should get changed
and help you out with that. It’s seems a
helluva
work,” he said.

“There’s a pair of
extra garden gloves in the garden shed. But I don’t have any garden boots that
could fit you.”

“You have no
intention of graciously turning down my offer,” he teased.

“No way,” she chuckled.
“Do you know how hard it is to dig through this tough earth? I’m not going to
pass on a good offer such as that. Might as well make the best of it while
you’re here.”

He gave her a mocking
sigh. “I was only trying to be a gentleman. I guess I shot myself in the foot.”

“I guess you did,”
she laughed.

He skipped back
inside the house to change. In ten minutes, he was back outside and beside her,
digging furiously into the earth.

She squatted below,
breaking and softening the dirt with a small, hand shovel. She watched him,
ploughing at her slow forming garden. She saw he had also helped himself to an
akubra hat from the garden shed which provided a little shade to his face. Sweat
broke over the furrows in his brow, dampening the sweatband of his hat. His plain,
blue shirt clung tightly and
stickily
onto his back.
In all the years she had known him, she had never seen him labour with his
hands. There was something raw about him that it was almost like she was seeing
him for the very first time. She felt a tingle inside her. Her body was
irresistibly responding to his proximity and the sensuality he was evoking in
her. She needed to break away from her thoughts of him.